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April 10, 2014

I Is For It's Just Business

"It's Just Business" is the 3rd part of the triad of events that has me, at the moment, talking to you on this blog. In fact, I daresay, without this mother ship of a novella, I probably would not be here today talking to you on this blog.

Back in 2007, I was writing the first version of this novella (currently working on #6) when I hit the proverbial wall. I had written myself into a corner with the novella, which is a story about a drug dealer/runner who runs afoul of his supplier, and had at the time, no real out for it. It contain all the elements in which I was experimenting/writing at the time: unmitigated violence, unmitigated sex, and multiple plot lines. All of which I executing very poorly (except in my mind at the time, I was executing properly).

Anywho, I decided to take a break by surfing the 'net (see the letter "C" for further details) and the rest they say, is history. Or rather, the proverbial 2,000 pound manuscript that for the longest time I could not do a single thing with. In fact, from 2007 thru 2010, whenever I decided to work on it, it often went like this:

Take out printed copy; open Word; start to read the entire manuscript; think about it for a spell; go to Word; change the title; get brain cramp; save and close Word; put printed copy back into the slush pile from hell.

Basically, for four years, the only thing I did with this novella was to change the title. It went from "Cedar Mountain" to "Cedar Mountain's Ecstasy" to "Ecstasy" to "E is for Ecstasy" to another title that I don't recall to finally the current, and in my mind, the one that makes the most sense, "It's Just Business".

Fast forward to 2013.

By the mid-summer, I had made an important decision in regards to my writing, so one of the first things to do in regards to that decision, was to get a lot of product at the ready. I'd already had two complete novellas at my disposal and I was trying to think about what I could write for a 3rd. At this point in my writing life, I had become enamored of the paranormal genre, and while my first book was liberally sprinkled with the paranormal (more on that later), the two novellas that I had on deck were hip dip in the paranormal (more on that later). After mulling the idea on what to write next in my head for a week or two, that novella pushed its way to the forefront.

So I took it out, did a thorough and very deliberate read through, and decided that this was a worthy candidate for my 3rd novella. However, just because it was worthy candidate doesn't necessarily mean that it was ready for use. In order to keep it like the others (paranormal/religion/moderate violence and semi-graphic sex) I needed to do a major hatchet job on it.

For the past three months I've been slowly chipping away the rewrite, mostly on the weekends, but when I do finish it, this crime novella will stand alone from my other written works, in that it has taken me the better part of 7 years to write and complete an acceptable 1st draft. Which if you think about it, is a fitting tribute to a novella that was 1/3 instrumental in getting me to where I am today.

G.A.: At the moment, my writing has been put on the back burner, so to speak. However, things are starting to calm down at work, so I'm hoping to start getting into the swing of things within a few weeks.